Grocery Spending/Menu Plan | Well, just grocery spending, actually!
On Saturdays, I share my menu plan for the upcoming week along with a photo of my groceries and a tally of my spending. My goal is to spend $100/week for our food, toiletries, and cleaning products. I'm currently in the midst of trying to buy more local, sustainably-produced food while sticking to my budget. Can it be done? I don't know, but I'm going to try, and I'll share what I learn as I go along.
Hi, everyone!
I'm working on kind of a tight schedule this weekend (all for fun and good reasons, though!), so this will just be a grocery report and not a menu plan post. I do have grocery pictures, though...four, in fact, because I separated my groceries into categories this week.
Here are a few toiletries that I bought.
This is the produce.
These are my pantry-ish purchases (although OJ is in there, and that's not a pantry item. Whoops. And should canned fruit go in the produce picture? Who knows?).
And these are the animal products I bought.
I spent $112.75 at Aldi and $70.80 at Weis. Plus, I sent Mr. FG to the store earlier in the week to get a couple of things and he spent $7. So my total for these two weeks is $190.55, which gives me $10 for a mid-week produce/milk run. That'll be a bit tight, but I think I can make it work.
Hello again! We live near you and I have written you before. I have another ALDI question. Have you ever tried their bacon-wrapped filets?? I have literally seen people in the store buying 20-30 of these steaks at once!! Are they really THAT good? They seem so small to me that I'm afraid if I grilled them, I would have a just a bite of meat left!
I have not been thrilled with Aldi meat in the past and so I was wondering if you had tried these and if they are really as amazing as I've heard they are!
Have a great weekend!
Jen
Are the fillets more than the cost of bacon + cost of steak? Because it's trivially easy to wrap a steak in bacon and yet the premium I usually see is steep.
I consider canned fruit to be pantry food, even though mine are packed in fruit juice and canned often has more nutrients than the "fresh" by the time it gets to the store. Canned fruit isn't perishable and can be part of one's emergency food store.
I haven't tried them....we haven't tended to eat a lot of beef, and now that I bought the quarter of a local cow, all my beef comes from my freezer!
A job well done!!!!
And the stuffed animals are back--yippee!
Hmm. I see a small rootbeer hariboro package of gummies sticking out in one post. From my working knowledge and expertise... i can only come to the conclusion that you went shopping with children? Did I guess right? 😉
I love seeing what you get. 😀 You've given me lots of new ideas from some of the items... but I might take a pass on the gummies. Those aren't my flavor ;p
Maybe Kristen keeps the Haribo gummies in her "high" cupboard and uses them as rewards for solving math problems! 🙂
Sonia wanted to get those for Mr. FG because she was concerned he might have had a hard day at work and would need a pick-me-up. 🙂
I noticed that you bought sliced lunch meat...I found an electric meat slicer at a garage sale several years ago, and now I can buy chunks of unsliced deli meat and slice it myself. That $20 purchase has paid for itself many times over!
Kristen, you inspire me to eat more fruits and veggies!
I have two comments: first, I found a way to save money on lunch meat and that is not to buy it at all. When chicken breasts are on sales at my local discount grocery store (ALPS--Always Low Prices Store) like they were on Friday for $.99 per pound, I bought about 7 pounds. I skin them and put as many into my stock pot as I can (or I roast them). Then when they are cooked and cooled, I shred them and put them into small zip bags and freeze them. For lunches, my hubby comes home and has a quick chicken taco--chicken, a little spicy seasoning and some cheese in the microwave. My child who goes to school gets a chicken salad sandwich--meaty, filling and healthier and cheaper than store-bought deli meat! My second comment is this--well, it is really a question: how do you get Mr. FG to only spend $7 when you send him to the store??!!
Oh, he's actually better than me at not picking up extraneous items at the store. He does occasionally pick up a small treat, but it's not a regular occurrence. 🙂
Lori - I do the same thing. I do this with our leftover pork chops and roasts (either beef or venison). I shred them and put them in reuseable containers in the freezer. The kids can make their own sandwiches at school since by the time lunch rolls around the meat is defrosted but is still cold and 'healthy'.
You do real well. With the price increases in gas and ect.. it is costing me $50 more per week now.
Hmmmm...let me guess what your meals are. Asian glazed tilapia, shrimp-pasta, grilled chicken salad, pizza at least twice...am I at least close?
Have you ever tried going "no poo" before? I was reading about it last week and I'm considering trying it (baking soda and apple cider vinegar instead of shampoo and conditioner) for health and money-saving benefits, but I'm feeling anxious about the transitional period.
Seriously??? All that for $183???? I have my latest picture on my blog of last week's grocery shop - and its kinda even more depressing although at the time I was so proud of it! LOL